Take-up machines wherein a strand being wound advances from overhead guide rolls and around a compensator wheel with the tension of the strand loop on the compensator wheel controlling the position of a support arm are well known. In such machines the position of the support arm acts to control the speed of a motor rotating the winding mechanism for effecting winding of the strand. In the known devices, the mounting arm for the compensator wheel is pivotally mounted for movement about a fixed axis of rotation of the compensator wheel with a total angle of wrap around a guide roll and compensator wheel being about 270 degrees. With such devices it is the general practice to incorporate the compensator integral with the take-up spindles. See, for example, German Patent No. DE 2,952,400 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,126.
Moreover, in order to obtain the proper fan angle (as the term is used herein, "fan angle" is the angle at the spindle guide roll as a yarn traverses from one end of a spindle containing a take-up spool or tube to the other end) for the strand with respect to the take-up spool or tube, it is generally necessary to utilize a substantial fan length, i.e., the distance between compensator wheel and the take-up spindle is substantial. In modern plants where space is limited, it is desirable to reduce the amount of space necessary for a take-up mechanism so that a greater number of take-up units can be located in a given space. Accordingly, various alternative take-up mechanisms have been suggested such as in the aforesaid U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,126 where a compensator wheel unit includes a mounting arm, a support mounted on the arm for pivotal movement about a first axis which is fixed relative to the mounting arm, and a compensator wheel carried by the support for rotation relative to the support and for pivoting with the support along the fixed axis. The winding speed is controlled by the tension of the strand loop through a control device. U.S. Pat. No. 3,565,355 discloses a take-up device embodying superimposed decks of winding units or heads with individual speed controls and individual yarn feeds thereto from over head. The thread loops pass across dancer arms which function as speed control sensors for the winding units. In this device the supply of filaments being fed from the yarn supply are split with part passing over one dancer arm and a part passing over the second dancer arm to the take-up package.